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A pitch to Microsoft
Make a compelling argument for a suite of features that meet the needs of a specific user group for a product of Microsoft. Your chosen user group must be currently underserved by the offerings in your chosen area.
The features that you build should directly address the real problems currently experienced by your users. The solutions must fit within the Microsoft ecosystem, the business and product priorities, and the industry space (including competitors).
Decode and Conquer, is the world's first book focused on product management (PM) interviews. In this book, the author-Lewis C Lin reveals the CIRCLES Method™.
We decided to use this framework to help explain our case as to why we need to target blue-collar workers on Linkedin.
C
Comprehend the situation
I
Identify the customer
R
Report customer needs
C
Cut through prioritization
L
List the solutions
E
Evaluate Trade-offs
S
Summarize
Blue-collar workers are the foundation of the economy.
Every industry relies on blue collar workers to create hardware that enables the connection of society.
Recently there has been rapid increase in unemployment among daily wage workers because of the pandemic.
As contract workers, they are perpetually on the lookout for a new job and are unable to seek out exciting opportunities outside of their network.
This disadvantage affects everyone as blue collar workers are the backbone of the workforce.
The inclusion of blue-collar workers on the platform aligns with Microsoft's vision to -
support inclusive economic opportunity.
Although the rate of unemployment has decreased since the pandemic, the numbers are still large enough to be a major concern.
There are currently about 10.1 million unemployed workers in the US.
Our pitch also aligns with the US government’s ‘Infrastructure Bill’ that has been established as a blue print to enrich the lives of hourly wage workers.
President Joe Biden’s 1.2 trillion dollar infrastructure bill will create about 4 million jobs, and that about four-fifths of them would not require college degrees.
Government investment in infrastructure will create job growth in blue-collar fields like construction, truck driving, electricians, and many more. Demand for blue-collar workers will be high.
LinkedIn can captivate this opportunity by creating a platform that also aligns with their vision.
"For all of you at home who feel left behind and forgotten in an economy that's changing so rapidly - this bill is for you"
Joe Biden. November 5, 2021
#1 trusted social media application
Most popular employment seeking platform
Already existing huge network of organizations and employers
Existing groups can lend a helping hand
Linkedin Learning can help polish skills that they never had the chance to
The average blue collar worker
We are obsessed with the problem of unemployment in the hourly wage workers sector
Five
To find out pain points of the users
“I haven’t had the chance to leave this town and explore my opportunities”
“It is hard work for me to get in touch with employers if I leave this company”
“My friend here (points to other worker) doesn’t speak english and can’t even get anything done online even if he wanted to
“Filling out the new applications as I am not a native english speaker. It is hard and takes a lot of time.”
Five
To find out why a platform of this nature is required
Q1: Why might you need a platform like this?
A: Because there is no platform through which I can find employment.
Q2: Why do you need employment?
A: To take care of my kids and myself?
Q3: Why do you need to take care of them?
A: I want them to have a better life than I did
Q4: Why do you think you had a rough life?
A: I had to work really hard to get to where I am.
Q5: Why did you have to work hard?
A: I never had the chance or opportunities to experience what you young people now do.
As a- I want to- So that format
As an hourly-wage worker,
I want to be able to seek employment and at the same time network outside my immediate network
so that I can be financially sound and feel autonomous.
The solution is to devise a platform with a global reach that will facilitate blue-collar workers to find meaningful opportunities for employment and financial empowerment. This will allow them to be:
Monthly Active Users ( MAU )
Definition of Active:
Unique users that are signing up on the platform and are either
1. Applying for jobs
2. Engaging with Employers and Organizations
Why:
By looking at a drop in MAU,
1. We can get a heads up that we may have to decrease the churn rate
2. It makes us aware that our service is not functioning well in catering to the needs of the user
Onboard 5% of the blue collar worker population in Q1
1. Maintain onboarding 30 days failure rate to a minimum of 5%
2. Increase productivity levels of new users by 40%
1. Ask only relevant details
2. Break things down
3. Show off the product
4. Make things skippable
Understand and improve customer satisfaction
1. Increase no. of users who complete on-boarding in first attempt from to at least 60%
2. Create 3 more blogs and pop-up tutorials related to on-boarding
1. Offer omnichannel support
2. Build strong communities
3. Maintain customer service etiquette
4. Help your customers help themselves
5. Measure CSAT scores regularly
We received interesting feedback from the stakeholders after our Mid-way presentation. It raised questions and provoked thoughts about the product that we did not think of before.
We understood that we needed a stronger rationale behind some of our design decisions and hence went back to the drawing board.
Additionally we came up with 3 main reasons on why our pitch must be seriously considered by the stakeholders of LinkedIn and they are as follows -
Adds value to the community
Blue collar workers are so important to the success and growth of a country’s economy. But often, these jobs, and people, are overlooked.
You will often see these guys (and ladies) working tirelessly in the blazing summer sun or torrential winter rains to perform and complete various jobs.
Everything we need as citizens like, roads, power plants, water facilities, houses etc. is all thanks to these heroes who have painstakingly done the “dirty work” so that we are able to have an easier life.
They are the heart and soul of each community.
Targets an untapped market
The Covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated the shortage of workers, at least temporarily. Many more people have taken early retirement, draining the economy of talent.
The current existing competitors although have attempted to flourish in this environment, have not been able to completely take advantage of the market.
We believe that Linkedin has an upper hand in this case because it already has an already existing global reach and also is the #1 place for people to hunt for jobs.
Generates revenue
Most of LinkedIn's revenue is generated from three of its major services: Talent Solutions, Marketing Solutions, and Premium Subscriptions.
Our feature proposition can add values on the marketing solution for attracting more companies to advertise to LinkedIn users.
LinkedIn has become a leader across multiple secular growth areas spanning B2B advertising, professional hiring, corporate learning, and sales intelligence.
Revenue from Talent Solutions
Recruiters that utilize LinkedIn's premium talent-finding capabilities are drawn to the platform because, with its hundreds of millions of users, it offers an unrivaled database of professionals from all over the world from which headhunters may locate employees with the talents they need.
With blue collar workers being included into the platform, there will be more opportunities for generating revenue from talent solutions, as more active job seekers and active hiring organizations will come onboard.
Revenue from Learning Solutions
Learning Solutions, the company's learning section, is also worth mentioning, despite the fact that it isn't a major income generator. Users may acquire a variety of talents and gain information on a variety of topics.
Employers of all sizes, from multinational corporations to small and medium-sized businesses, demand a diverse set of skills. Learning Solutions may be used to help blue-collar employees and job seekers in the country upskill and increase their employability, alongside making revenue from leveraging the mass unemployment in the blue collar workers sector.
Revenue from Marketing Solutions
After we received feedback from our stakeholders, we went back to the drawing board. We realized we needed stronger backing of rationale behind some of our features. We were fixed on the solution rather than the problem.
We recruited and interviewed 3 additional participants.
We believed that we could not gather a lot of insights from our previous interviews since we had a lack of time and ended up with a quick round of interview followed by the 5 Why’s method.
Instead, this time we conducted a semi-structured interview with the
hourly wage workers.
“How do I view my resume on the dashboard?”
“Is there support for a different language...”
“I don’t know where to click to apply"
“I want to immediately know the hourly pay of the job”
“The current job dashboard is too cluttered.”
“I cannot see the status of my application”
“How do I know if I have applied to this before?”
“Filling out the new applications as I am not a native english speaker. It is hard and takes a lot of time.”
“I have a tough time with creating resumes”
Altered the Job description cards
Quick filters
Application Status
Resume Builder
We utilized the MoSCoW framework to better understand what should be prioritized in the product roadmap and how could this inform an MVP and an ideal solution.
Quick filters and Application Status
Job seekers can utilise quick filters and application status for less stressful and better discoverability.
Instant Resume Builder
This will help job seekers find relevant employment opportunities, without the traditional resume hurdle.
Regional Language Support
Although this is something we find very valuable, the impact is not worth the investment in the initial stages.
Jobs Description Cards
This component is the primary point of discovery, and ideally should be invested in before committing more resources to build other features.
“The current job dashboard is too cluttered.”
“I don’t know where to click to apply”
“I want to immediately know the hourly pay of the job”
“How do I view my resume on the dashboard?”
“Is there support for a different language...”
“I cannot see the status of my application”
“How do I know if I have applied to this before?”
“Filling out the new applications as I am not a native english speaker. It is hard and takes a lot of time.”
“I have a tough time with creating resumes”
Five
5 seconds first impression test
Participants were given 5 seconds to look a the protoype.
After the 5 seconds participants were instructed to give what stood out and any feedback.
Any feedback was noted down.
“I like the new dashboard that my profile on the right side is more clear when scrolling on the page. ”
“Can you show the search bar criteria on the center of the page as well? It's more prominent for me.”
“What’s the shown order of job application status? Is it depend on the job you applied or it’s due to the application status? "
If I applied for more jobs then the list might be pretty long, is there a better way to show it? or make a personal list like my top 3 or something. ”
The redesign not only makes LinkedIn a better platform to use for hourly wage workers but also to other users too.
With our redesign, we intend to keep the social media section as it's a great place to interact and network with recruiters and additionally it's a great source of revenue for the company.
Our redesign aims to make it easier for hourly wage workers to find new employment opportunities.
It helps them build resumes seamlessly without having to personally enter a lot of details.
For building the timeline, we began by discussing the key problems, solutions for these problems, goals/OKRs, and higher level mission of the company.
We employed the RICE framework as an aid to build the timeline.
R: How many customers will encounter this feature over a single quarter?
I: How much will this feature increase conversion rate when a customer encounters it?
C: How confident are we about the optimistic estimates for reach, impact, and effort?
E: Estimation of the total amount of time (months) a feature will require from all members of a team (product, design, and engineering).
Peter Ngo
Full Stack Developer at Target
With Peter’s experience being a full stack developer, his knowledge in front end and back end helped determine an engineering time frame. We first showed him the current page of LinkedIn and then showed our new designs/features.
Overview of what he said:
1. Team of 5 engineers.
2. An estimate of 7 sprints for full completion.
3. Existing linkedin features/assets can be grabbed and modified for new platform.
4. Bulk of work will be designated towards the logic of the resume builder.
Brainstorming for features to build
Breakdown each feature into numerous of tasks
Allocate tasks to different engineers
Build up each backlogs
Review and evaluate backlogs progress
Initially we had plans of creating a seperate platform much like Linkedin China’s jobs-only platform: InJobs for blue collar workers. But we decided to move away from that goal after receiving feedback from the stakeholders and reviewing the revenue, value and connections that social media platform generates.
For our midway presentation, we came up with high fidelity prototypes that changed the entire platform. But we understood our shortcomings when we realized that our design decisions did not have financial and engineering rationale behind it.
We conducted another round of interviews to understand our target audience and their pain points better. It made us deeply “obsessed” with the problem of seeking unemployment and helped us empathize with the blue-collar workers
The product team needs to closely monitor the following success metrics-
1. Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) so that we are aware if the new features are losing money.
2. Daily Active User/Monthly Active User ratio to be aware of how many blue collar workers are being onboarded
3. Customer Satisfaction Score to be aware of the happiness quotient of the users
The product team can avoid risks by doing the following the Risk Management Process-
Focusing on these future visions can further support LinkedIn’s vision of
“Creating economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce”.
We think given the time frame and objectives, the team did specially well in empathizing with the blue collar workers. We conducted interviews with employers initially too to get their perspective too.
After our midway presentation we understood the project better after the critique and feedback that we received from the stakeholders and our peers.
If given a chance, the team would have conducted the first round of interviews effectively and gathered accurate insights from the participants.
One aspect we believe we could have done better was regularly schedule weekly updates to communicate with each other
Blue collar workers are a vital part of the community as they add immense value to its sustenance, so it is of utmost importance that we protect and value them. They require a platform that expands their opportunities, and our proposed platform features are aimed towards empowering and enabling them to get that exposure through LinkedIn’s expansive community. Through secondary and primary research, we came up with a few feature propositions, namely, job description cards, quick filters, application status, and regional language support; all of these aim at increasing discoverability (finding more jobs to apply), visibility (feedback like the status of application), and overall making the process of applying jobs less stressful jobs for blue collar workers.
LinkedIn is dedicated to its purpose of connecting all people with opportunities, which is an extension of Microsoft's corporate mission ( “to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more”), and including blue collar-workers will empower them to build connections, share experiences, and find jobs. For recruiters, it would serve as a central place for finding highly lucrative and mass talent. It could be a wise investment, particularly in cities with stringent local employment rules. Contract positions in San Francisco, for example, must be filled with 30% residents, which is difficult in a city with diminishing numbers of blue collar workers. This would lead to value generation for a highly untapped market, which includes both employers and employees.
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